She sighed. Lunch hour at last. She tapped the button on the word processor one last time, straightened some papers and left. Once in the long corridor, she clenched her fists in rage. Why? she thought. Why didn't he like her? How could they? How could he ignore her? And, with these thoughts in mind, she flung her wrists furiously to her sides, and she pointed her chin high into the air. She stomped down the hall in the atrociously high black heels and swung her head around to her left, to glimpse Scott through the copyroom, across the adjacent hallway, walking parallel to her. Embarrassed suddenly at her enraged stance, she tilted her head and started to smile. She raced toward the door at the end of the hall, knowing who she would meet in the lobby. She opened one door, as Scott opened the other and there, walking toward each other, at the elevator button, they met.
"Hi," they softly said to each other. All her anger left her.
He smiled down on her, his gaze softening to reflect the expression in her eyes, as if their true feelings for each other, shrouded in winter fog all these months, became defined and now the clouds gave way to a clear reflecting pool, if only for a few moments.
He pressed the elevator button, for her, for them.
"Oh, it's so busy," she breathed. She did not know what else to say.
"Well, at least you're not bored."
"Oh, I could use some boredome," she sighed as they stepped into the elevator.
"It has its advantages," he said matter-of-factly, in his soothing deep voice.
"I think we'll be moving out," she informed him.
"To another part of the country?"
"Nooo. A few blocks," she answered in surprise.
"Still the same roomates?"
"Yeah. Her sisters. It's crazy."
"Does that guy still call her?"
"Yeah, every night. Collect."
"Collect." He chuckled.
"We think he's killing off his friends. It's crazy." She repeated.
She was trembling but t wasn't the FBI or a psycho killer she was afraid of. It was Scott.
She stared up at him, her blue eyes round and huge.
"We're moving because we're scared. We don't know what he'll do." She looked way up at him, petite even in her three-inch heels. He studied her face, the blond bangs falling over her blue eyes. His own face was young, handsome in the flattering lights of the elevator.
They stepped out of the elevator onto the glossy brown marble floor of the vast lobby.
"We don't know if he'll kill her or he'll kill me. And it's a long fall from the fourteenth floor." She announced.
"Ye--Yeeeah," Scott shuddered.
"Well, see ya," and she left him standing there.
He stood and watched her as she passed through the revolving glass doors into the sunlit day.
DENISE HICKEY
ALL THAT GLITTERS ?
Doc. 0656D
